A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
by cakebythepound
Summary: Michonne's Friday afternoon isn't going so well, and Rick, for all his good intentions, only makes it worse. (AU Richonne one-shot.)


_**A/N: Another quickie for your Sunday afternoon. **_**;)**_** I absolutely adore this song, and as I sat here crying to it like a crazy pregnant woman, I realized I wanted to give it to Rick and Michonne. So... here you are! Hope you like! -Ashley**_

* * *

**A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day**

She knew something was wrong when her boss asked to meet with her on a Friday afternoon. That was never a good sign. She'd seen many people walk out of that office on Friday afternoons with tissues in their balled up fists, their broken hearts on their sleeves.

She sat there, listening to him speak in sentence fragments that didn't quite make sense. "Things aren't working out." "We tried." "Everyone here is at their best." It reminded her of the George Clooney movie, Up in the Air, where they advise management to never actually use the F-word, so it was a very weird game of "you're fired" euphemisms that fell on her drop by drop, like some kind of water torture.

He refused to actually say the words, so she had to tell it to herself, in her head, over and over again. _You're fired, Michonne. You're fucking fired._ How sadistic is that.

The relationship between herself and her boss had been strained for quite some time. She was the only black woman in the entire firm, and they made sure she knew it. Giving her the smallest office, never inviting her on the retreats at the boss's lake house. It was the kind of racism that happened all the time in corporate America. Exclusion was their biggest and best move, and they used it with aplomb.

Now, she'd lost a case, and they had the perfect excuse to get rid of her once and for all. She'd been there for four years and remained undefeated in the courtroom that entire time. But the very first time the verdict doesn't go her way, she's out the door. Of _course_.

She stoically gathered her belongings, not bothering with any of her awards or plaques – just the picture she kept from her law school graduation and a coffee mug her best friend Rick had given her… back when he was still her best friend. She didn't need anything else from that place. Fuck that place.

* * *

Rick was on his way home from a long day of fighting bad guys when his phone vibrated against his passenger seat. He knew he shouldn't have answered, as his Bluetooth wasn't in the vicinity, but when he saw who was calling, he couldn't help but pick up.

"Hey. It's me."

"I know," he resisted the urge to smile. "Happy New Year."

"Yeah. Are you in the city?" she asked, hurriedly.

"Yeah…"

"Are you busy?"

"Are you all right?" he wanted to know first. While they hadn't spoken in a while, he knew it wasn't like her to cut to the chase, there was always sarcastic banter to throw around before she actually said what was on her mind.

"I'm feeling crazy right now, but I'm… okay. I just… I need to see you."

He frowned into the phone, perplexed by her words. He thought she was mad at him, actually, for telling her that he needed space in their friendship. Said he still wanted her in his life, but they couldn't be as close as they were. She didn't know just how dangerous it was for him to be around her as a newly married man. "Is that a good idea?"

"Probably not." She let out a heavy sigh, and in his ear, it sounded like she could've knocked over a building with it. "I've got no one else, Rick."

His heart melted at those words. Even though he knew she had other people, because she had a life full of friends and family that loved her, he understood that _he_ was her person. Always had been. Through all the ups and downs of their lives, the awful jobs, the even worse relationships, they stayed constant. He was her person. She was his.

He wasn't sure why things changed so suddenly. When he got engaged, it seemed that some kind of switch flipped. She started looking at him differently, which caused him to look at her differently. And maybe the sexual tension had always been there, but they could ignore it with an inappropriate joke or making fun of one another. But they couldn't do that anymore once he was married, and that's when the real feelings started bubbling over. He needed the distance or he knew he would end up hurting someone; maybe even everyone.

At that moment, however, none of that really stopped him from wanting to be there for her. "O…kay," he relented hesitantly. "Where are you?"

"I'm on my way home. Or wherever you need me to go," she offered, leaving the lot of her new old job.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Rick quickly swerved to hop off of the highway so that he could head the opposite way, towards Michonne's area of the city. "Okay, I'm on my way to your house. How long will you be?"

Relieved that she could rely on him in her hour of need, she let out another sigh. "Thank you so much," she relayed sincerely. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

_All I know is that you're so nice  
You're the nicest thing I've seen_

Twenty minutes later, Michonne arrived, pleased to find that Rick was already waiting for her. He was leaned against his truck, likely texting someone on his phone as she got out of her car.

"Hey," he smiled sheepishly, removing his sunglasses from his face.

Michonne, who had spent much of her ride home in tears, reluctantly removed her own sunglasses to reveal her puffy red eyes. "Hey."

"You scared the hell outta me, you know."

"How did I do that?" she attempted a smile, leading him through her garage.

"The urgency in your voice, it was… alarming."

It only mirrored what she had been feeling, she thought. She was uneasy, she felt panicked and unstable, not only about her job, but about the fact that Rick was the only person in the world she felt like sharing those feelings with. He asked for space, but she just couldn't give it to him. She needed him. "Sorry," was all she could muster up in response.

_I wish that we could give it a go  
See if we could be something…_

As they entered her tidy home, he watched her drop her purse to the floor and then fall into her sofa as if the day had kicked her ass. "So what's up?" he had to know.

"Today was terrible," she confirmed as she slowly removed her peacoat and flung it over the nearest armrest. "Fuck today."

He followed her lead, taking off his own leather jacket and sitting on the couch at the opposing end from her. "What happened today?"

"I was fired. Or rather, 'let go,'" she rolled her eyes.

"Okay." Rick sat back in his seat, digesting the news for her and nodded slowly. "So?"

"'So?'" she repeatedly loudly. "What do you mean, 'So?!'"

"I mean… you didn't like that place anyway. It's not like you won't get another job."

"But it's the principle. I've given them everything for four years, ignoring how shittily they treated me. And I lose one case and they let me go?"

"They didn't respect you, Michonne. You knew that when they called you Michelle the entire first year you were there."

"No fucking kidding," she remembered angrily. It was almost silly, the amount of shit she put up with just to be at the biggest firm in the southeast. "God…"

"But here's the thing," he went on to add, knowing that his simple words wouldn't resonate with someone as stubborn as Michonne. "They don't even know what a huge loss this is for them. You… I mean, you're perfect. Anybody that knows you knows you work your ass off, and then you have this presence that's so beautiful and brings everyone to their full attention. On top of that, you're just dangerously intelligent. You're gonna run this town one day."

Michonne gave him a small smile, feeling very bashful as she marveled that such a simple statement could be so healing and thrilling and unsettling, all at once. "You're just saying things."

"I'm serious, Michonne. They're gonna rue the day they ever let you go."

She loved the way his southern drawl brought her so much peace. "Do you?" she stupidly brought herself out of the moment to remind it that this was all temporary. That he'd let her go, too.

Rick looked at her for a long time, not wanting to admit how empty his life was without her. He loved his new wife dearly, but Michonne had been part of his every day for so long... "I do miss you," he noted quietly.

_I wish I was your favourite girl_

"Why are you married?" she wondered sadly, again, resisting the urge to cry uncontrollably.

"Because I fell in love."

And that did it. Michonne felt her cheeks flush, her eyes well up with tears, and they came spilling onto her face in an embarrassing rush of honesty.

_I wish you thought I was the reason you were in the world  
I wish my smile was your favourite kind of smile  
I wish the way that I dressed was your favourite kind of style_

"Michonne…"

"I'm sorry. I'm a fucking wreck right now."

"It's okay," he replied, avoiding her tear-filled face.

"Have you ever realized something just a little too late? Or wanted something that was _just_ out of your reach?"

He nodded, knowing full well that they were way past discussing her situation with work.

"What do you do about it?"

He knew that it was a bit of a rhetorical question, but he thought it only fair to respond some way. He didn't want to leave her sad words hanging in the air. "I dunno," he finally said, feeling just as gloomy about the situation.

_I wish you couldn't figure me out  
But you'd always wanna know what I was about_

If anything, it was clear that he was in the same boat she was. Conflicted, contrite, but unwavering in his feelings. At the very least, she thought, they were in this together. It wasn't unrequited, this was no lopsided crush. They had mutual feelings for one another that they couldn't do much of anything about.

"I'm sorry, I suck at cheering people up," he glanced back at her, realizing that she was still crying.

But she didn't care. She was just glad that he was there, not looking towards the door, looking for an escape route. He was there, with her, in the thick of it, not leaving. She pulled her legs up onto the couch with her, contorting into a crosslegged position as she wiped at her face. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm doing this to you."

_I wish you'd hold my hand when I was upset  
I wish you'd never forget the look on my face when we first met_

"You're not doing anything. We're friends. You can… confide in me whenever you want to."

Friends. That dreaded word. "I have enough friends. I don't wanna be your friend," she blurted out, hating the sound of her own voice as she heard it.

_Basically, I wish that you loved me_

"I know. But I'm married. There's nothing else we can be now."

_I wish that you needed me_

She nodded quickly as another few frustrated tears slid down her face. "I know."

_I wish that you knew when I said two sugars, actually I meant three_

"Michonne, I'm not… equipped to handle this."

"I know."

"So what are we gonna do?"

"I don't know."

It was all too much. There he sat, with this infinitely awesome woman at his side – a woman that wasn't his wife – and all he was thinking of was finding a way to make her smile. He wanted to hold her hand and tell her that it would all be all right. He wanted to envelop her and kiss her and assure her that nothing mattered, so long as they had one another. But there it was. The simple fact was that they didn't have each other. Not anymore. They had the moment and the moment was wrong for every reason imaginable. What was he supposed to do?

"I should go," he announced when his thoughts became overwhelming.

"Do you really have to go?" she requested, even more saddened by the notion of being alone with her own thoughts.

He nodded, standing up to put on his jacket.

She stood as well, tempted to take his hand and make him stay. Instead she just walked him to the door. "I appreciate you coming by."

Knowing that he shouldn't have, he only blushed in response. "Everything will be all right," he promised, not really sure whether that was true.

"You don't know that," she read his mind, gazing into his pools of sad blues. "Do you?"

He shook his head and slowly lowered his head. What was he doing? Her head began to raise and then tilt, eventually colliding with his softly. They were cheek to cheek, then nose to cheek, then nose to nose. They both held still for a moment, just listening to the other breathing nervously, and it seemed like an eternity was passing. But then his bottom lip grazed her top one and it took only a millisecond for their mouths to squarely find one another, their lips parted.

_I wish that without me, your heart would break  
I wish that without me, you'd be spending the rest of your nights awake  
I wish that without me, you couldn't eat  
Yeah, I wish I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep_

As they kissed, Rick's mind went completely blank. In that second, anything and everything outside of her quiet abode didn't exist. There was no Sasha, no wedding, no ring on his finger, nothing but his attraction to Michonne, demanding that he not stop.

Michonne, on the other hand, had a million thoughts swirling around her overstuffed brain. She knew, more than anything, that this could signify the beginning of the end once his conscience took over, and she could feel the sting of more tears as she imagined never seeing him again after this. She needed to be able to call on him.

"Rick," she exhaled shakily, wiping her face and her lips.

"Michonne, I am so sorry."

"I'm sorry," she countered, backing away from him. "You're married. This is ridiculous…"

"I'm so sorry," he repeated, feeling more remorseful with every second that passed. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry." It was all she could say too, knowing that this was so, so wrong.

"Fuck." He knew that the fact that he couldn't help himself spoke volumes to what he was feeling. "We can't do this."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I am, too."

"I have to go."

"Is our friendship totally fucked?" she wondered out loud, even though she was beginning to realize that they never really had a friendship to begin with. She had butterflies for him about two minutes into their very first conversation.

"Michonne…"

_Look, all I know is that you're the nicest thing I've ever seen_

She didn't want to hear his answer if it was going to be Yes. "Okay, go," she insisted, quickly swinging her front door open.

"Yeah, I should..."

"Okay." As more tears streamed down her cheeks, she finally understood why he needed space.

If he didn't love her back, that would've been easy. She could move on with her life one day, and maybe Rick Grimes would stay tucked away in some corner of her heart. Maybe not. But this? Knowing that he shared her feelings? Seeing the heartbroken look on his face as he realized he was hopelessly in love with her too? How was she supposed to live with that?

_And I wish we could see if we could be something  
Yeah, I wish we could see if we could be something…_

* * *

_Lyrics: "Nicest Thing" - Kate Nash (Made of Bricks)_


End file.
